


Sanguine

by linguamortua



Series: 90 Minute Timed Writing Challenge - May 2015 [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, Blood, Bottom Steve Rogers, Brock Rumlow Is Really Nasty, Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, HYDRA Trash Party, M/M, Oral Sex, Trash Adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 20:48:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3951211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/pseuds/linguamortua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brock Rumlow was friendly, approachable, accommodating. Steve needed that badly. So badly, in fact, that he was willing to ignore the voice of reason and let himself be drawn into Brock's orbit, and Brock's bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sanguine

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 90 (+15) minutes from a prompt submitted to me as part of a self-imposed timed writing challenge. Stuckystan gave me this prompt: pairing: steverumlow, prompt: "that? oh, it's just a little blood."
> 
> You can add me [on Tumblr](http://lingua-mortua.tumblr.com/).

Steve’s absolute favourite thing about his S.T.R.I.K.E second-in-command was how cheerful he was. Really, it was remarkable; Brock Rumlow was a tough, resourceful man, muscular and scarred by a career of fighting, but he’d always got a smile on his face. Steve appreciated that, remembering the casual camaraderie of the Howling Commandoes and the way they could cut through his seriousness and make him grin even in the worst of times. Coming out of the ice might have been a quick process physically, but emotionally Steve still struggled to truly feel warmth. For a while, he thought that a little, hard core of him might stay icy forever. Brock’s easy charm, his big, white-toothed grin and good-natured ribbing were the first gestures of friendship that Steve really _felt_.

‘Call me Brock,’ he’d said, grabbing Steve’s hand in both of his and giving him a squeeze, a slap on the shoulder. Within no time, Brock had swept him up into the tight, exclusive S.T.R.I.K.E circle, noisily shoving his comrades up benches, or dispatching Steve over to ask Rollins about his poker game, or cajoling Wood to share his gum with the Captain. S.T.R.I.K.E accepted him because Brock did, and although they were usually a taciturn and insular bunch, Steve was intensely grateful that Brock had carved out a Cap-shaped space for him to slide into. He couldn’t have made that happen for himself. Steve could be charismatic and persuasive, but not on tap, and certainly not in the service of his own personal comfort. There was a particular, prickling embarrassment in squaring his jaw and saying heroic things. The only thing that made it bearable was Steve knowing he was doing it for a higher purpose.

Brock understood that, Steve thought. S.T.R.I.K.E was a tight clique for a reason. Always the first under fire, the last to leave, the men called upon to do the dirty work. Bucky would have loved them; he’d have cut through the standoffishness and be ripping off Rollins over a card game in a day. Fast-talking, big-grinning, confident Bucky, with the heart of slightly-tarnished gold and the equally malleable morals, when necessary. Brock understood higher purpose, because just being in S.T.R.I.K.E necessitated putting aside the finer ethics of life and making tough calls. That was doubly true for their leader. In one of their first missions together, a rookie named Ian Blake had made a minor error under fire and wound up with a neat bullet hole through his tanned forehead. Brock and Steve had watched it happen, Brock unwilling to jeopardise the mission to yank Blake back. A hard call, made by a hard man under fire. In the jet on the way home, Brock had closed the young man’s eyes with a gentle hand, said an unpretentious and heartening few words to the others and then soldiered on. Steve rather admired him for that.

In time, Steve gravitated towards Brock in a more personal way. They sparred a little, although Brock was self-aware enough to laugh ruefully after a couple of rounds and admit that an ageing soldier couldn’t be expected to take on Captain America and win. Sometimes they discussed missions, although they soon developed an agreement to leave work at work. A man could get dragged under, lingering on the failures and the deaths, and showboating over victory wasn’t Brock’s style or Steve’s. They talked about sports (baseball for Steve, football for Brock), watched their way through war films, sat out in beer gardens and said not much of anything.

‘You’re a pal, Steve,’ Brock said to him once, casually, as Steve brought over four pint glasses in a diamond between his big hands, and Steve had been startled into a wide beam. _You might be my only real friend_ , he thought, but didn’t say it. He mentally apologised to Sam, who still saw Steve as a project and a hero, and to Natasha, who could be anyone under the skin, slippery and too-clever and possessed of so many secrets.

Brock introduced him to craft beer, to the climbing wall at the local gym, to Tom Clancy and eye-watering Szechuan cuisine and outdoor music festivals.

‘I got a new coffee-maker,’ he said proudly one morning as they looked over endless building blueprints. ‘Come over later, experience the magic of Italian ingenuity.’

Steve hesitated, a little shy to think about seeing the inside of his home, but when he said ‘All right,’ there was Brock’s smile, his wide, easy smile.

When Steve arrived late in the afternoon, there the smell of fresh, sugary donuts laced the air and something calm and bluesy was playing on the stereo. Brock showed him the coffee machine (chrome and black, sleek, multi-buttoned) with great enthusiasm and made them each a cup of joe, rich and dark. They watched the cups fill like little boys. The machine was quiet, like so many modern machines, and then it pinged and two thumb-sized plastic pots dropped into a tray.

‘Science fiction!’ Steve exclaimed with glee, and immediately burned his mouth on the coffee. Brock laughed at him and Steve almost felt hurt, but then Brock had a hand on his face and a thumb brushing his lower lip open. Steve blushed, slow and hot, from his shirt collar to his hairline. ‘Should you—’ he said hesitantly, putting his cup down on the counter. Brock stepped back, shrugged with one shoulder and gave him a flicker of a grin that passed between reassuring and sharp. Steve felt strange, heading home soon after. The thing is, something happened. No, scratch that, Steve thought to himself savagely that night, lying awake and fretful in bed. The thing is, it felt like something was about to happen. Brock doesn’t mention anything, though, so Steve doesn’t.

In the summer, Brock liked to sit in the park on his lunch break, with a fancy espresso and a sandwich, soaking up the sunshine and working on his tan.

‘It’s vain,’ he said to Steve. ‘I’m vain. I’m a vain old guy. I watch the girls walk by and they’re younger than _you_.’

‘Infants,’ Steve said dryly, eating his pasta salad with little enthusiasm. He was not at all convinced of the virtues of cold pasta.

‘Babes in arms,’ agreed Brock. ‘Corruptible innocents, but the _sundresses_ , man.’ He laughed in his rich, hearty way and Steve laughed with him. The girls _were_ lovely. It was a good view, with families and couples and students, just being human like they had been back in Steve’s day.

‘With all the short shorts and the tank tops, I’m actually kind of surprised that fellas don’t wear sundresses these days,’ said Steve. Brock barked another laugh.

‘Some of ‘em might as well,’ he said with an eye-roll. ‘Bunch of princesses.’

‘No,’ Steve told him, earnestly. ‘It’s not about if they’re real men. It’s just… it’s funny, some of the fashions. It’s real funny.’

‘Your shirt is funny,’ Brock retaliated. ‘Brown plaid, old guy style.’ And then he looked at Steve and sucked pesto off his thumb and forefinger, and Steve’s blood was rushing all over again.

‘I might be getting a sunburn out here,’ he said hurriedly, overcompensating.

‘It’s not a sunburn, Steve,’ Brock replied knowingly, and then he flipped his trash into the bin with an easy overarm, stood up and stretched so a long strip of belly showed under his shirt.

A week or so passed, and Steve began to wonder if he was being slow. Nothing for a couple of days and then a bright smile and an arm over the back of the park bench along Steve’s shoulders. Nothing for a day and then a low, warm chuckle when Steve licked at an ice cream. Nothing for three long, confusing days and then Brock caught him by the elbow in a hallway.

‘Big game on Saturday,’ he said, excitement colouring his voice. ‘Coming over? I’ll buy beer and snacks. You can hold my hand when the action gets too much for me.’ He clutched his heart dramatically, flashed a smile that was anticipatory and hurried.

‘Yes,’ Steve blurted, and then Brock dashed off with a wave, claiming a meeting.

When Saturday came he changed his outfit several times and felt like an idiot. He shouldn’t try so hard to please Brock; that’s what he would tell a friend. If it was meant to be, his shirt wouldn’t make a difference. He pictured himself saying that to Bucky and honestly believing it. It was an honest truth, he thought, and honesty was something he was rather good at. Except Brock would touch him then back off, burst into a smile that was both inviting and intense, all charm and chill and dark, masculine beauty. Brock could have anyone he wanted, could take anyone with ease.

So why wasn’t he taking Steve?

In the event, he felt a bit silly standing at Brock’s door in fawn slacks and a dark green shirt, when Brock was in a team shirt and old black jeans. Still, Brock reeled him in with a warm hand on his wrist and a dazzling smile.

‘Oh, beer, so _nice_ to see you, and you brought Steve,’ he quipped, taking smooth possession of the six-pack hanging off Steve’s fingers. He poured chips into a bowl, made popcorn in a clever little paper bag. Steve burned his fingertips when he turned over the pouch out the microwave.

‘Kiss it better?’ Steve dared himself to say, and Brock laughed in a throaty way that reminded Steve of Peggy when there was nobody around to disapprove. Brock took the palm of Steve’s hand in his and flicked a tongue across Steve’s fingertips, looking him in the eye. The muscles of his jaw and neck corded when he licked in a way that makes Steve’s mind flash to arching backs, toes pointing, fingers curling into sheets.

‘The game,’ Brock said when Steve stepped forward to… what? He gathered up the beer and followed Brock obediently to the sofa.

When the final whistle blew, Brock leaped from the sofa with a great whoop. He spun on his heel, light like Fred Astaire, and Steve laughed to see him so loose and animated. Even in the midst of his boyish happiness, there was something suave and practiced about his movements. Steve was therefore not surprised when Brock stopped and padded towards him, folded himself at the knees in between Steve’s feet.

‘Help me celebrate,’ he said, husky with beer and yelling, and crooked a finger. Steve fell towards him, took his face in his hands and kissed him, thinking _at least I’ll know, at least now I’ll know for sure_. Brock tasted like salt and sharpness and a hint of beer, and he sucked Steve’s lower lip and licked at his tongue and Steve was desperately hungry for him, so restless and thrilling through with desire.

‘Yes,’ he murmured into Brock’s mouth, and then he was pulled down onto the floor and between Brock’s thighs and rolling his hips and spilling his come over Brock’s strong, clever hand.

‘Look,’ Brock said a little later, when Steve was straightening his hair in the hall mirror and slipping on his shoes. ‘It’s not that I don’t want you to stay.’

‘No,’ Steve said, agreeing even though he didn’t understand why Brock had suddenly turned cagey. ‘I get it.’

‘I’m not out at work,’ Brock told him, trailing a hand down his forearm.

‘You’re not…?

‘Out,’ Brock repeated. ‘They don’t know I fuck men,’ he clarified, making Steve blush hard and look at Brock’s lips again and—

— Brock grabbed the front of his shirt and shoved him backwards against the wall and kissed him, deep and insistent.

‘I can’t leave with you attached to my shirt,’ Steve said, swinging for levity.

‘One for the road,’ Brock told him, tugged his collar sideways and bit down hot and wet over his collarbone. Steve gasped and clutched Brock’s hair, his head smacking into the wall in a way that was the edge of painful, the edge of sudden-intense-good.

Nothing changed at work. Sometimes Brock would look at him in a searching way, a touch of come-hither in his sloe eyes. They sat in a meeting together and Brock moved his foot to lean against Steve’s.

‘I’m sorry, Agent Coulson, what was the question again?’

In the locker room one evening, Brock stripped in front of him, gave him a hot hard look over his shoulder on the way to the shower. Steve followed him, hesitantly but thinking that surely, surely this was the response. Brock hadn’t closed his shower door yet and he waited, watched Steve approach, let Steve brace his arms on the top of the cubicle and take a breath before he said softly but emphatically, ‘not here.’

When? Steve wanted to ask? When?

He composed texts on his phone, trying for the right tone.

_What do people in the twenty-first century have to do to get a date?_

_When’s the next ball game?_

_What’re you doing later?_

_Come to my place tonight_

_Let’s get pizza_

Eventually he texted, _I want you_.

‘Eight tonight?’ Brock said under his voice as they passed opposite ways through the elevator.

Steve showed up fifteen minutes early, paced the street outside for ten, then rang the buzzer.

‘You’re playing me,’ he accused Brock as he opened the door. ‘I’m old-fashioned but I’m not stupid.’

‘Get in here,’ Brock said, smelling like deodorant and mouthwash. He placed his hands on Steve’s hips, walked him backwards through the galley kitchen, across the living room floor. Steve looked at the sofa and the carpet, remembering.

‘Take me to bed,’ Steve said, reaching for Brock. Brock evaded him like a cat, all hips and trim waist and Cheshire smile. He leaned in the doorway of the bedroom, hip cocked against the doorjamb. He looked lithe in his civvies, grey jeans and a black polo shirt carelessly open at the neck. His bedroom was sparse; a low bed with no headboard and gunmetal coloured sheets, a single nightstand and a dresser in some dark wood, and dark red curtains that cast a deep red shadow across the room.

‘If we fuck,’ Brock said, annunciating the k and pausing for a second, ‘then I gotta know you’ll keep it down low at work.’

‘I will,’ Steve breathed, half-hard in his slacks.

‘And you oughta know,’ he carried on, running a hand up the back of his neck into his hair in a way that made his bicep and shoulder stand out, ‘I go hard.’

‘I can take hard.’

There was nothing friendly about Brock’s smile in that moment; Steve saw the edge of sadistic anticipation peeking through. The smile pulled at him low in his belly and he almost floated across the floor, entranced. Brock kept retreating away from him _like he always does god I need him to touch me_ , stepping back into the bedroom until he looked washed with blood. He rolled Brock down onto the bed, impatient and greedy, and Brock grabbed Steve’s belt and used it as leverage, arching his hips up and rubbing his thigh between Steve’s legs. Their kissing was nothing gentle, nothing pretty. Brock tasted like mint and blood where he bit down on Steve’s lip.

Steve tore at Brock’s shirt, getting it haphazardly over his head with the loss of just one button, which ricocheted off the wall and down onto the carpet somewhere. His own clothes disappeared somehow, tugged off and left where they fell, but it was all a blur because everything was about Brock’s skin, his rough hands, his body heat, his mouth on Steve’s cock. Steve cried out when Brock tongued down his dick, cupping Brock’s neck with his hand and arching up.

‘Put it in me,’ he gasped, and oh, he felt Brock’s deep chuckle all the way through him, echoing from Brock’s chest through his mouth where he was sucking Steve off. Brock pulled off just long enough to suck his fingers before he was pushing them into Steve, twisting and crooking up. Steve keened, writhed, begged. ‘Brock,’ he pleaded, ‘Brock, come on, come on, I’ve waited so long for you, I want you.’

First it was fingers, one-by-one, and then Brock’s tongue in a way that made Steve groan and groan in a rhythmic crescendo and bang his fist against the wall. Brock rolled him over, spread him open with his hands and spat hard. His cock rubbed up against Steve’s ass, slicking him up, and then it was pressing inexorably into Steve. Steve made a guttural sound into the mattress, twisted his hands into the covers. He pressed his ass backwards, impaling himself, feeling the tight, hot stretch, the fullness, the body heat of Brock’s dick. Brock had Steve by the hair, tugged, caught him by the throat in a shallow arm lock, fucked him from behind with brutal precision. Steve’s legs shook with the effort of keeping their weight up, the effort of holding off his orgasm until, until—

‘Yeah, Steve,’ Brock gritted out through his teeth. ‘Take it, take it, I’m gonna come in your ass, yeah,’ and he collapsed over Steve’s back with a strangled sound deep in his throat. Steve let his knees go out, slid down onto the mattress and rubbed himself off against the sheet, no hands or help, just raw friction and need with Brock still deep inside him. Afterwards, Steve lay sprawled and tipping his head back off the pillow. He gazed up the wall, hazily registering a light spray of faded red.

‘Paint?’ he asked dreamily, running his fingertips over the line of dots over his head. With his other hand he explored the bites on his chest, his raw nipples. He felt bruised, opened, over-fucked and dizzy with sated lust.

‘That?’ Brock said. ‘Oh, it's just a little blood.’ He reached into his nightstand drawer and brought out something small, shiny. He held it up for Steve, who reached, curious, and then Brock did something with his thumb and a two-inch switchblade popped out, nicking Steve’s index finger.

‘God,’ Steve said, thick and inarticulate and made slow and lazy by his orgasm.

And Brock smiled, all teeth, like a shark, and pushed Steve back down underneath him with a growl.


End file.
